F 64 
.G79 
Copy 1 



EEMARKS 

ON 

THE BOSTON MAGAZINE, 

THE GEOGRAPHICAL GAZETTEER 
OF MASSACHUSETTS, 

AND 

JOHN NORMAN, ENGRAVER. 



BY 

SAMUEL A. GREEN. 



CAMBRIDGE: 
JOHN WILSON AND SON 

2SiuiJfvsitg 19rtss. 
1904. 



A.' 



n ^^0 



^^^ THE BOSTON MAGAZINE, 

THE GEOGEAPHICAL GAZETTEEE OF MASSACHUSETTS, 

AND 

JOHN NOEMAN, ENGEAVEE. 



At a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society, held in Boston on Thursday, May 12, 1904, 
Dr. Samuel A. Green made the following remarks : — 

The Historical Library has among its manuscripts the 
records of " a Society for compiling a Magazine in the town of 
Boston," of wliich the membership was limited to a number 
not less than seven, nor more than twenty-one persons. At 
the start the association consisted of twelve members, and 
their first meeting was held on November 25, 1783, when 
officers were duly chosen. Of these twelve original mem- 
bers six at a later period became members of the Historical 
Society ; and from time to time new members were chosen, 
generally after a nomination at the preceding meeting. In 
this way seven names were added to the original list of twelve ; 
and of the total number of nineteen members eight afterward 
belonged to the Historical Society, namely : — John Eliot, 
James Freeman, George R. Minot, Aaron Dexter, John Clarke, 
John Bradford, Benjamin Lincoln, and Christopher Gore. Of 
the ten original members of the Historical Society, three were 
original members of the Society for compiling a Magazine, 
namely : — Messrs. Eliot, Freeman, and Minot. 

These men were all persons of historical tastes and instincts, 
as is shown by the fact that one of the objects of the INIagazine 
Society was to publish a Gazetteer of Massachusetts, giving a 
sketch of every town in the Commonwealth. 






The main object of the organization was to publish a 
periodical, which afterward became known as " The Boston 
Magazine." This publication was issued by " Norman & 
White at their office in Marshall's Lane, near the Boston 
Stone " ; and the first regular number appeared in November, 
1783, though there had been an earlier one in October, which 
the publishers in their Preface requested should " not be 
ranked among the numbers of the Boston Magazine: And 
shall take the liberty of calling the Magazine for November, 
the first number." In their Preface to this October issue the 
publishers add: — " We may say, with a degree of certainty, 
(as we are promised the assistance of a number of gentlemen 
of genius and education) that the following Numbers will 
excel this." This allusion is to the Society now under consid- 
eration. The record book runs from November 25, 1783, to May 
13, 1785, though there are memoranda elsewhere which show 
that meetings were held as late as the following November. 
Ordinarily the Society met once a fortnight, though some- 
times at longer or shorter intervals according to circumstances. 
At these meetings the various papers offered for publication 
in the Magazine were considered, when judgment was passed 
upon them. 

It is an interesting fact to note that among the earliest pub- 
lications of the Historical Society there is printed an account 
of the celebration of the tercentenary of the Discovery of 
America, when an address was delivered by Dr. Belknap, on 
October 28, 1792 ; and in the first volume of " The Boston 
Magazine " (pp. 280-285) there is an essay by Dr. Belknap, 
on the subject " Has the discovery of America been useful or 
hurtful to mankind?" The copy of the bound Magazine 
given to the Library, on April 9, 1791, by the Rev. Dr. James 
Freeman, has in his own handwriting at the end of some of 
the articles the names of the respective authors ; and the 
essay in question is signed " R. J. Belknap" (Rev. Jeremy 
Belknap). This circumstance, though trifling in itself, shows 
what was running in the author's mind at that early period 
of his literary life, and to what subjects he was then paying 
attention. 

Another coincidence in the publication of the Magazine is the 
fact that for a while it was the organ of a body of men whose 
writings appeared first in its pages ; and later, the same fact 






may be noted in connection with the earlier articles by mem- 
bers of the Historical Society, which appeared first in *' The 
American Apollo." It shows, too, how in two instances dur- 
ing tlie latter part of the eighteenth century the papers of 
literary societies appeared in periodical publications ; and, 
furthermore, the two magazines continued for a while after 
the Societies respectively withdrew their support. 

An interesting feature of " The Boston Magazine " was the 
printing of a " Geographical Gazetteer of Massachusetts," 
which came out as a serial number at the end of certain issues. 
Usually it consisted of eight pages, but in one instance of six- 
teen pages. In this supplement an account of twenty-one 
towns in Suffolk County is given, comprising the whole of the 
County as then constituted, besides an unfinished description 
of Charlestown in Middlesex County. Beginning with the 
number for October, 1784, and ending with that for November 
of the next year, ninety-six pages were thus printed, though 
the last page is numbered ninety-eight by mistake. 

These separate issues were carefully collected by Dr. Free- 
man, and together with a manuscript completion of the sketch 
of Charlestown and a titlepage, both by himself, were bound, 
and given by him to this Library among its earliest accessions. 
At the end of some of the articles he has added the authorship, 
as follows: Boston, Dr. John Warren, Colonel Dawes, Rev. 
John Clarke, and Rev. James Freeman; Chelsea, Rev. Phillips 
Payson ; Dorchester, Rev. Moses Everett ; Weymouth, Dr. 
Cotton Tufts; Hingham, General Lincoln; Hull, General 
Lincoln ; Walpole, Major Seth Bullard ; and Charlestown, Dr. 
Josiah Bartlett. Naturally sets of the Gazetteer are now ex- 
tremely rare, and the number of copies in existence could be 
counted, probably, on the fingers of one hand. 

I have described in some detail this " Society for com- 
piling a Magazine," as in a certain sense it was the parent or 
forerunner of the Historical Society. A considerable portion 
of its membership at a later period became founders or early 
members of this Society ; and it is evident that in their work 
they were animated by the true spirit of historical inquiry. 
Another line of parallelism between the two is the fact that 
both bodies started with a limited membership. In the " Pro- 
posals" issued by the publishers of the Magazine, it is said that 
"Several gentlemen have engaged to arrange the materials 



which shall be sent them," — evidently referring to the mem- 
bers of the "Society for compiling a Magazine"; and the 
publishers also set forth the need and importance of full de- 
scriptions of the various towns in the Commonwealth and in 
the District of Maine. 

In the earlier volumes of the Historical Collections similar 
descriptions of towns are given ; and Ebenezer Pemberton, 
who wrote an historical account of Boston which appears in 
Volume III., refers to the sketch printed in the Geographi- 
cal Gazetteer as a supplement to "The Boston Magazine," and 
evidently used it in the preparation of his own paper. These 
several circumstances all go to show that there was a cer- 
tain continuity of tradition in the minds of men who at that 
period were cultivating a taste for historical research, and who 
also had a desire to interest the public in their w^ork. A con- 
nection between the Society and the Magazine was kept up 
for nearly two years, when, on October 28, 1785, the Society 
voted to withdraw entirely from the publication ; and then 
the union was dissolved. 

The publishers of the first three numbers (November, 1783, 
to January, 1781), were Norman & White, but in February the 
firm name was changed to Norman, White & Freeman, and 
under this style they continued as publishers for the next five 
numbers (February to June inclusive); and in July, 1781, 
they were followed by Greenleaf & Freeman, when Norman's 
name drops out of the firm. The volume is fully illustrated 
with copperplate engravings, made by Norman, who had been 
one of the publishers. In the number of " The Boston Gazette, 
and the Country Journal," February 11, 1785, appear two 
advertisements, one by the publishers and the other by the 
engraver, in which there is much recrimination in regard to 
their former business relations. At that period John Norman 
was a well-known engraver who did creditable work in his 
special line, as shown by various illustrated books. He was 
the publisher of the first Boston Directory, printed in the year 
1789, though his own name does not appear in tlie body of 
the work ; but it is given in the Directory for 1796, which 
was the second issue of that publication. 

In Number V. of " An Impartial History of the War 
between Great Britain and the United States" (Boston, 
1782), facing page 257, is a " Plan of the Town of Boston," 



which was engraved and signed by Norman. Substantially 
the same map appears in the October number (1784) of " The 
Boston Magazine," with some slight changes, though not 
signed ; and it also appears in the Boston Directory for 1789, 
with other variations, again not signed. The engraver, prob- 
ably, was a son of John and Martha (Shaw) Norman, but 
little is known concerning his early life. It may be worthy 
of note that these three engraved maps by him are all based 
on Captain John Bonner's Map of Boston, published in 1722. 
Even William Price's Map, as published in 1739, 1743, and 
1769, was struck from tlie same plate as Bonner's, though 
there were many changes in order to make it conform to the 
new dates respectively. 

The " New-England Palladium & Commercial Advertiser " 
(Boston), Tuesday, June 10, 1817, has the following notice of 
his death : — 

On Sunday evening [June 8], Mr. John Norman, aged 62 [69] — 
Funeral this afternoon, at 4 o'clock, from his house. Cross-street, friends 
and relatives are requested to attend without a further invitation. 

In the several " Death " notices, as given by the Boston 
newspapers, there is a disagreement in regard to his age, some 
of them saying that he was sixty-nine years old at the time, 
and others that he was sixty-two years, but the records in the 
City Registrar's office show that his age was then sixty-nine. 
He died of " slow fever," and was buried in Copp's-Hill Bury- 
ing Ground. The given name of his widow was Alice. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



014 012 592 1 



